Books

As Medicare, Medicaid, and major insurance companies increasingly deny payment for “never events”, it has become imperative that hospitals and doctors develop new ways to prevent these avoidable catastrophes from recurring. Proactive tools such as root cause analysis (RCA), basic failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), and opportunity analysis (OA) are useful in preventing error, but in the healthcare field, such tools are often constrained by ...

Around the world, many people live, work and recreate in river, estuarine and coastal areas, systems which are also important wildlife habitats. It is imperative to understand the physics of such systems. A key element here is morphodynamics: the mutual interaction and adjustment of landform topography and fluid dynamics involving the motion of sediment. The numerous interacting processes involved, such as large- and small-scale hydrodynamics, ...

Conservation tillage systems solve the problem of land degradation and declining water productivity. However, direct application of such tillage systems has not been possible among resource-poor, smallholder farmers in semi-arid areas of Ethiopia. This book considers traditional tillage systems and discusses the results of evaluations carried out on appropriate conservation tillage implements and systems for smallholder farmers in semi-arid ...

This study examines fingerponds in the Lake Victoria wetlands in Uganda. It discusses the importance of organic manure applications in enhancing nutrient levels, phytoplankton, and periphyton productivities and ultimately fish production. The study demonstrates that organic manures enhance algal development and fish production, emphasizing that close monitoring and control are needed. It explores the enhancement of fish yields using animal ...

Wetlands play an important role in the livelihoods of many rural households particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. However, due to decline in rainfed terrestrial agriculture, many wetlands are being encroached upon to grow crops. The question to any wetland scientist/policy maker in the region is: what efforts can be made to achieve a balance between human needs for food and income and maintenance of ecosystem integrity?. This study analyses the ...

Dyke swarms are of crucial significance in tectonics, and with recent developments in high-precision age dating it has become possible to enter these short-lived magmatic events into a global data base. This book discusses the properties of dykes, from Archean to Miocene, in terms of mineralogy, geochemistry, isotopes, geochronology and paleomagnetics. It. pays particular attention to mafic dykes and dyke swarms. The editors provide an important ...

Written to meet the needs of both students and applied researchers, Design of Experiments for Agriculture and the Natural Sciences, Second Edition serves as an introductory guide to experimental design and analysis. Like the popular original, this thorough text provides an understanding of the logical underpinnings of design and analysis by selecting and discussing only those carefully chosen designs that offer the greatest utility. However, it ...

Completely revised and updated, taking the scientific rigor to a whole new level, the second edition of the Occupational Ergonomics Handbook is now available in two volumes. This new organization demonstrates the enormous amount of advances that have occurred in the field since the publication of the first edition. The editors have brought together researchers from a wide range of disciplines with pioneering practitioners in industry to cover a ...

Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world. It is characterised by famine as a result of high population pressure, resource base degradation, and insufficient rainfall for rainfed agriculture. On the other hand, it is endowed with a huge annual water resource potential of about 110 billion cubic metres, a potentially irrigable land of 3.6 million hectares and a productive manpower of about 48% of the total population. In view of these ...

While the commitment to protect and restore forest ecosystems has become a policy goal in many countries since the Rio Conference, there is still no general consensus on what constitutes restoration. This authoritative reference presents the best practices for fostering increased sustainability, enhancing biodiversity, and repairing ecosystem functions in one comprehensive volume.

The practitioner or researcher often faces complex alternatives when selecting a method to characterize properties governing a soil process. After years of research and development, environmental and agricultural professionals now have an array of methods for characterizing soil processes. Well-established methods, however, may not be suitable for the specific conditions of a study since many soil characteristics are intrinsically variable. An ...

Water reuse programs worldwide face a number of technical, economic, and regulatory challenges related to the long-term environmental, agronomic, and health impacts of the recycling of reclaimed water. Also, the economic benefit of water reuse in irrigation is difficult to determine, and must be weighed against environmental costs, making the decisions of wastewater engineers, administrators, and planners even more difficult.

Forests at the wildland-urban interface are at increasing risk due to the impacts of urbanization. Conserving and managing these forestlands for continued ecological and social benefits is a critical and complex challenge facing natural resource managers, land-use planners, and policymakers.

Addressing a topic of major importance to the maintenance of world food supplies, this reference identifies knowledge gaps, defines priorities, and formulates recommendations for the improvement of the rice-wheat farming system. The book reveals new systems of rice intensification and management and illustrates the application of no-till and conservation farming to the rice-wheat system. With contributions from 65 international experts, and case ...

Agrometeorology: Principles and Applications of Climate Studies in Agriculture is a much-needed reference resource on the practice of merging the science of meteorology with the service of agriculture. Written in a concise, straightforward style, the book presents examples of clinical applications (methods, techniques, models, and services) in varying climates and agricultural systems, documenting up-to-date research literature from around the ...

Soil degradation, a decline in soil quality due to anthropogenic perturbations, is a serious threat with negative impacts on agriculture and the environment. The assessment and monitoring of all forms of degradation is essential to the evaluation of negative trends and implementation of mitigating technologies. Soil Degradation in the United States: Extent, Severity, and Trends is an assessment of current trends and geographic hot spots. It not ...

This book describes successful experiences of many companies, institutions and individual users in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Spain, that are willing to apply 'bio'lubricants in their equipment and ready to monitor the effects. Their experiences are summarized in useful tips that help the potential user to realize a successful substitution. It describes the different available products and gives an overview of the technical ...

The potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change is one factor driving agricultural policy development of programs that might pay farmers for practices with a high potential to sequester carbon. With chapters by economists, policy makers, farmers, land managers, energy company representatives, and soil scientists, Agricultural Practices and Policies for Carbon Sequestration in Soil explores a broad range of topics. It ...

Lack of accidents does not necessarily mean safe operation. You may have been lucky. You may have had near misses, but fortune smiled and you had few accidents. Measuring accidents provides one segment of the safety picture, but it is a far cry from evaluating and creating overall safety. Rather than giving you accident statistics and the admonition "you need a program," Agricultural Safety shows you how to "do" safety. The book sets forth the ...